Why Fitness Products Suck and You Don’t Need Them

I’m going to cut right to the chase today – fitness products suck and you don’t need them. From the Thigh Master in the early 90’s to the whatever is popular today, fitness companies have been marketing overpriced junk for ages.

I’ve always known deep down that this stuff was bogus, but it wasn’t until recently that I actively began seeking out evidence to back up my long-held beliefs. After all, I getting a small handful of questions from readers each month asking my opinion on some new fitness tool. Time and again, I give the same advice. Some of it seems to stick, other times it’s as if my voice is silent.

So in an effort to further open the eyes of my readers, I want to present you with the best argument to date about why you don’t need to purchase any of those overpriced fitness products if you really want to get in shape.

Fitness Products…They Suck

For starter’s, let’s take a look at the perfect push up. This is essentially a rotation handle for each hand that claims to provide a more effective and stimulating push up experience for the user. By holding onto the handles while performing a push up, the makers claim more muscles will be activated, resulting in a more effective workout. And if you look at the male models using the product, you’d certainly be keen to think so as well. But a deeper examination by researchers painted a different story.

Participants in this paticular study were hooked up to EMG machines which monitored muscle recruitment and activation. After having subjects complete a series of push ups with different hand positioning, researchers monitored the results. As expected, the Perfect Push Up showed zero benefit over the standard, no-cost, body-weight only push up. Surprised?

Anyone heard of those butt-shaping shoes that were all the craze a few years back? Come to think of it, I saw someone wearing a pair on the airplane just the other day. They claim to recruit muscles in your hamstrings and butt to provide a gradual strengthening and plumping of those areas. Throw ’em on, walk around, and boom – a nice shapely set of legs and butt. Too good to be true? You bet. A study by ACE found there was zero benefit to these shoes. None, nothing, absolutely rubbish. Think a big company can’t or won’t lie to you? Think again.

Another craptacular piece of equipment so many have been duped into buying is the good ol’ Ab Rocker. This thing promises 6-pack abs (you should already be suspicious) by rocking around a few days a week on this contraption. Luckily for us, some fine folks over at San Diego State University decided to run a little study look at the effectiveness of popular abdominal exercise options.

Researchers compared 13 different options and the one that came in dead last? The Ab Rocker. This scam is essentially the least effective thing you could do for your abs, short of sitting on the couch and eating a bag of potato chips. Again, if you’re convinced big, name-brand companies have a conscious and are just too ethical to lie to you, you couldn’t be more wrong. Every day we’re lied to by advertisers so the best we can do is use our brains, seek out information, and stop believing everything that is being forced upon us.

At the end of the day, the best thing you can do for yourself is find a suitable fitness program, adhere to a reasonable diet, and combine with a healthy dose of discipline and motivation. Leave the bogus fitness products to the other guy, because NOW you know better than to fall for the same old tricks!